~ Thoughts on Freedom and The West

Tag Archives: WSJ

How do you cancel something that hasn… Nevermind. While it’s just as likely the 3.2 and other numbers have been manipulated, it’s possible that the recession we were in (that I called months ago) is over. If so, then it was the first, minor phase of a double dip. The second phase will be harder to cover up or ignore.

Lance Morrow penned an interesting, short op-ed to the WSJ, yesterday, on the new national obsession and condition – hysteria:

Pretty soon absolutely everything becomes an outrage. Anything that isn’t an outrage is Jeb Bush. Complex interactions of outrage from both parties’ bases conjured up the presidency of Donald Trump, who is the mighty Wurlitzer of the art form.

Outrage seems strenuous enough, but in truth it is a lazy habit—spontaneous, fatuous and naive. Organizing a lynch mob is easier—with a surer, immediate and dramatic reward—than conducting a fair trial, which requires the brains and patience of an adult. (The inner terror of Trumpians is that Robert Mueller is a grown-up with brains and patience.) Outrage presents itself as an assertion of conscience, but in practice it mostly bypasses conscience and judgment, and goes straight to self-righteous rage, by way of self-pity.

Outrage may be justified, of course, and redress long overdue. Just as a dose of morphine may be appropriate to help a patient in extreme pain, so with outrage. But like morphine, outrage is widely abused—and addictive. It may wind up becoming frivolous or fraudulent, as in all those “triggers” and “microaggressions.”

Is outrage now an American entitlement, and a permanent state of mind? Black Americans are more entitled to outrage than most, their grievances embedded in history. Are Asian-Americans entitled to be outraged? Some are making that case in their lawsuit over Harvard’s admissions practices—an argument that, in turn, collides with the counterclaims of African-American outrage. Are gay people entitled to be outraged? Are women entitled to be outraged? Who isn’t entitled to be outraged? (White men?)

There is something sinister and corrupt—Maoist—in the habit of assigning people to categories. That was the besetting sin of the 20th century; it was the way of genocide. As people are again consigned to shallow, mutually exclusive categories in this century, it is as if we learned nothing.

A society that goes on in this way will exhaust itself. …

It this case, seemingly, has exhausted itself. Morrow notes that when everything is viewed as an outrageous happening, then the real tragedies – like the railroading of the honest Julian Assange – lose significance. Morrow ponders a cure. Not unsurprisingly, he doesn’t come up with one. Me neither, except, maybe, for two: something beyond unpleasant, like a civil war, or; the very long, slow passage of time.

Before seeking a cure, it might be helpful to identify a cause. America has changed because Americans have changed. By strict definition, they are, now, a small minority of the hominids shuffling about the land. The people, even most of the “good” people have forgotten, written off, or just never read Marcus Aurelius’s admonition against overreaction to stimuli, good or bad. The number of those capable of reading, let alone understanding, Meditations decreases daily.

We have become a nation of fat, stupid, multi-vice addicted, God-eschewing, perpetually adolescent, instant gratification-seeking, lazy, insolent, fractured, and mentally unstable slobs. The populace, as easily frightened as entertained – and loving both, no longer can, or cares to, sort the true from the false, nor the right from the wrong.

For those few who still can, it’s time to do … something. For those many who can’t, well, hey! it’s conference championship weekend! Hubba.

**Note, the first: Thank you for the November visits. With all the changes and the departure of the Farcebook rabble, all of last month’s traffic was close to that of a good week back, say, two years ago. Still, I’m happy, grateful. Better the patronage of the select few than the patronizing of the debased masses.

**Note, the second: Only four ex-Presidents remain in the world. Gone is George Herbert Walker Bush, No. 41. Perhaps his greatest accomplishment was surviving a crash landing in the Pacific in 1944. Later, he did damage incalculable to the Old Republic. Read my lips, “Goodbye.”

The WSJ is alarmed that kids at the high schools of Paterson, NJ are cutting classes. The district brought in “specialists” to fix this horrible problem. But that misses the real issue. Those proficiency ratings… The Paterson district boasts 5% (FIVE!!!) proficiency in math and 18% in reading. Yet some of their schools graduate 100% of the students (for Paterson grads, that means all of them get diplomas).

If so few actually learn but everyone graduates, then what’s the point of showing up?

The specialists will surely tell us.

And in other, more pressing education news, the DOJ has weighed in on the Harvard Asian scandal and case. This will have ramifications.

Maybe the new editors at the WSJ can reinstitute some truth controls. There’s a glaring error in this story:

The Social Security program’s costs will exceed its income this year for the first time since 1982, forcing the program to dip into its nearly $3 trillion trust fund to cover benefits.

This is three years sooner than expected a year ago, partly due to lower economic growth projections, according to the latest annual report the trustees of Social Security and Medicare released Tuesday. The program’s income comes from tax revenue and interest from its trust fund.

The trust fund will be depleted in 2034 and Social Security will no longer be able to pay its full scheduled benefits unless Congress takes action to shore up the program’s finances. Without any changes, recipients then would receive only about three-quarters of their scheduled benefits from incoming tax revenues.

The report also said that Medicare’s hospital insurance fund would be depleted in 2026, three years earlier than anticipated in last year’s report. Absent changes, the program then would be able to handle 91% of costs.

The nation’s aging population is boosting the costs of Social Security and Medicare, while revenue gains lag due to slower growth in the economy and the labor force.

Where, exactly, is this $3 Trillion reserve fund, this “lockbox,” located? My guess would be in that D.C. museum with the Constitution, the dinos, and other things that don’t exist.

The “reserves” are but an accounting trick which, simply put, is just more debt for you and your kids to enjoy in the future.

There is probably some hidden truth in the story if one knows what to look for. Those dates in the late 20’s and early 30’s. Something else will probably fail around that time.